Seeing "X-Men" at times is like getting a free meal at a Salvation Army mission: You have to sit through a certain amount of preaching to get to the good stuff.

This feast of fantasy is worth it.

"X-Men" is an Xtraordinary distillation of -- and new riff on -- the long-running comic-book series.

The most anticipated movie title of the summer for generations of fans -- the Marvel Comics characters on which it is based go back to the mid-'60s -- is, not coincidentally, aimed at the biggest generation of moviegoers -- teenagers.

These outcast mutants with super powers -- X-Men, not teenagers -- play right into adolescent angst:

The mutation of their special gifts occurs at puberty. Those caught on the cusp of higher development are treated by the world with suspicion and distrust. They variously want to save the world or destroy it. They disappear into their own secret underground. This is a digital-effects extravaganza that also works on the emotional level. There are neatly placed flashes of humor. "X-Men" is the most effective movie embodiment of comic-book characters -- with one unfortunate but not fatal exception -- since Tim Burton's "Batman" in 1989 (or the graphic novel-based "The Crow" in 1994).

A pervasive sense of darkness and pain figures in them all.

Two bands of mutants, the X-Men and their shadow counterparts, vie -- those who want to save the world that shuns them versus those who want to let it fry in its own hatred. They are positive and negative charges of the same battery.

If the battle results in a smugly superior egghead (Patrick Stewart) mentoring the X-Men, there is an interestingly conflicted villain (Ian McKellen) as his opposite number.

These characters have emblematic names like Cyclops (James Marsden) and Storm (Halle Berry). Best of them all is the blade-fisted, haunted bad boy Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). No one knows what Mystique, who should be called Morph, will look like next.

Their various powers only begin with telekinesis and telepathy and include an eye-beam jolt and a lethally wicked tongue. There is the dubious power of extracting someone's life force by a mere touch, a curse for Rogue (Anna Paquin). There is Wolverine's saving grace of self-healing.

Jackman, an intense and soulful Australian actor, makes the claw- sprouting Wolverine stand out from the pack. The sultry-voiced Berry, in blond wig, makes her relatively small role seem bigger. Paquin is especially affecting.

The one exception to effective presentation of the team of superheroes is Marsden as Cyclops, through no fault of his own. Tell me, what is the dumbest thing someone could do to an actor? Cover up his eyes. Except for one scene, Marsden must wear either his Cyclops visor or dark glasses. People have to remember what he looks like from TV ("Party of Five"), and those who have never seen this rising star hardly will see him in this film.

You'd think they might have learned from LeVar Burton in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Covering up an actor's eyes makes him unwatchable. One of the few lapses of imagination in "X-Men" is the failure to come up with a better way to present this eye-zapper.

To his credit, Marsden still makes Cyclops' arrogance flash through. His rivalry with Wolverine produces a couple of smart-ass exchanges and the movie's best sight gag -- the gesture is a very old-fashioned digital effect.

Stewart must bear an actor's burden of providing mouthfuls of high- mindedness and exposition. Some viewers may prefer figuring it out for themselves. Surrounded by beatifically adoring mutant acolytes, he comes off as the center of a precious coterie, such as Ayn Rand's. He's such a vivid presence that it's too bad he shows little interest in playing villains.

That role here is left to McKellen, who finds the depth in it. This is a film with a message. It involves social outcasts and intolerance -- there are specific references to Nazism and McCarthyism. Other interpretations are clearly out there, so to speak.

One of them gets a subliminal spin from McKellen's public role as a gay actor. Stewart, as Xavier, advocates assimilation with the "normal" world. As Magneto, McKellen represents the separatists -- "anonymity is a mutant's first defense against the world's hostility" -- but in his performance, bitterness contends with a latent yearning to belong.

The handling of the amazingly detailed computerized effects rises to an aesthetic level of digital imaging. The discovery of Rogue in a railway station is an awesome transition. Another character's watery exit is not only shocking, it is an unforgettable image of life slipping away. ..